When the slave who attended on the Caliph had set a handsome goblet of silver before him and had filled it with wine, the Caliph raised the goblet, and said—
"We thank you, gentlemen, and you, sir, especially, who are master of this house, for the welcome you have given us, and your kindness in admitting us to be partakers of your feast. And we beg that you will continue that merry conversation in which we heard you engaged when we ventured to interrupt you and to intrude on your agreeable society."
"Gentlemen," said the host, whose name was Abou Hassan, "you must know that during several evenings on which the present pleasant company have previously assembled, we have entertained each other by a relation of such parts of the history of each of us as the narrators have judged might prove interesting. Just before you entered the eighth of our party had finished an account of his experiences, which gave rise to the merry discussion which you heard. There now remain but two of us, Murad Essed and myself, who owe our stories to the company, and I will, therefore, by your leave, at once invite Murad to begin."
THE STORY OF MURAD ESSED, THE UNFORTUNATE MERCHANT.
The young man addressed as Murad, and who wore a frank and jovial expression of countenance, began as follows:
"It gives me much pleasure to relate to this good company those vicissitudes and misfortunes which have earned for me the designation of 'The Unfortunate Merchant,' because we shall then be favoured with an account of the history of our host, who has lately been known as 'The Fortunate Merchant.' His good fortune and his great wealth are indeed surprising, and are no more due to the inheritance bequeathed to him by his ancestors than my poverty is owing to what was bequeathed to me by mine. So far is that from being the case, that on the death of my father, who was one of the leading merchants of Bagdad, I found myself the possessor of an immense fortune. It was so large and I was so young and inexperienced that I imagined that it could never be exhausted. I bought a grand house, with fine rooms and wide gardens. Ah! my dear Abou Hassan, this very house where we now are was the house. I fitted it with all kinds of handsome and luxurious furniture. I bought slaves to wait on me, and in my harem; ah! gentlemen, in our dreams we picture nothing better. The Caliph himself might have envied me.
"Well, gentlemen, for two years I lived like a Sultan. I denied myself nothing, and never gave one thought to the expense. At length, one day after completing the sale of a large quantity of merchandize, which had been stored in his warehouses by my father, I was induced to consider the state of my affairs, and I found that in these two years I had expended the half of my fortune.
"This caused me to reflect seriously on my situation and mode of life. At this rate, what with women, wine, and gambling, I should soon have nothing left.
"I determined to reform. I sold a number of my slaves; I reduced my establishment; I became very economical; I gave my little wine parties, as some of you may remember, only once a week instead of every evening.
"But, besides effecting these little alterations, what I principally did was this: I divided my remaining fortune into two equal parts. With the one half I proposed to embark in trade, while I retained the other half to live upon and to provide against accidents.